An Evening with Philip Roth: A Conversation with Bernard Avishai, Igor Webb, and Steven Zipperstein

·1 hr 7 min·5 clips

Jonathan Brent recalls Philip Roth's advice to 'let it rip' before introducing a panel on Roth's novel Nemesis.

The episode begins with host Jonathan Brent introducing the panel at the Evo Institute, dedicated to studying East European Jewish civilization. He shares a personal anecdote about Philip Roth's advice to 'let it rip.' Brent positions Roth as a master of American literature and explains Evo's mission to document a 1,000-year-old Jewish civilization that was previously unstudied. Bernard Avishai opens the panel discussion by framing Nemesis around moral questions of duty and happiness. He compares the novel to Arthur Koestler's 1943 work Arrival and Departure, which features a protagonist torn between fighting Nazis or escaping to America. Avishai analyzes Bucky Cantor's dilemma as a playground director during a polio epidemic, exploring his guilt after discovering he's a silent carrier. Steven Zipperstein examines the Jewish dimensions of Roth's work, noting how Jewishness operates invisibly in Nemesis while remaining essential. He reveals that narrator Arnie Mesnikoff invented much of Bucky's story, questioning narrative reliability. Zipperstein discusses Roth's classification of his novels, with Nemesis belonging to a group about living with unchoosable fates. Igor Webb compares Nemesis to plague narratives like Boccaccio's Decameron and Camus' The Plague. He analyzes Bucky's opaque decision-making and love of diving as metaphors for control. Webb explores how narrator Arnie's perspective shapes the story, particularly in judging Bucky's choices. The panelists debate whether Bucky's rejection of marriage represents tragic dignity or stubbornness. They connect Roth's themes to Jewish experiences of community and isolation. The episode concludes with Philip Roth reading the final pages of Nemesis, describing Bucky Cantor's javelin-throwing prowess before his polio diagnosis.

As heard by us

A careful conversation that keeps Nemesis morally and structurally alive.

Philip Roth's Nemesis is treated as a live object for close reading, and the discussion moves steadily from framing to interpretation. It gives real weight to Bucky Cantor, Arnie Mesnikoff, Marcia, and the novel's language of hiding, duty, and ordinary life, so the book's…

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Why you'd press play

You want a close reading of Nemesis that takes Bucky Cantor, Arnie Mesnikoff, and the novel's central questions seriously.

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